


This fire will not burn you

by stjarna



Series: Season 4 - Coda Challenge [20]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Additional Scene, Coda, Coda Challenge @The FitzSimmons Network, Conversation, F/M, Fitz's Father, Fitz's mother, Post S04E12 "Hot Potato Soup", Spoilers, THE PHOTOGRAPH
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 18:34:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9561614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stjarna/pseuds/stjarna
Summary: Written for The "Season 4, Episode 12 - Hot Potato Soup" Coda Challenge organized by The Fitzsimmons Network on Tumblr.Fitzsimmons talk about Fitz's past (and their past) (post-episode)





	

_“Step into the fire of self-discovery. This fire will not burn you, it will only burn what you are not.” - Mooji._

* * *

 

When Jemma returns from the shower, she finds him sitting on the edge of their bed, slightly hunched over. She takes a step closer and catches a glimpse of the photograph in his hand.

It’s like she stepped back in time by a few hours. Déjà vu. The only difference being that he’s now in his pajamas.

Quietly, she walks over and sits down next to him.

His head barely moves, but it’s enough to let her know he’s aware of her presence.

She rests her hand on his back, only using her thumb to gently stroke up and down, feeling the fabric of his t-shirt against her skin.

“You’ve thought about her a lot today, haven’t you?” she says quietly, knowing full well that it’s a rhetorical question.

The corner of his mouth quirks up slightly, and a small audible puff of air flees his nose.

“Yeah,” he replies, barely above a whisper.

Jemma brings her hand close to the picture, not daring to grab it herself, but relieved when he offers it to her on his own.

She takes it and a smile appears on her face as she looks at the photograph.

“I remember the first time I saw it,” she recalls. “I had come to your room to study and it was lying on your nightstand, and I grabbed it and went on and on about how adorable you looked and if that was your mum and that I had never seen a picture of her and—”

“—I ripped it out of your hands, shoved it into my drawer, and told you that it was none of your business,” Fitz adds.

Jemma grimaces; a sad smile. “Gosh, I was so confused. I had never seen you like that before. So upset. Angry. I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong.”

“Nothing,” he whispers, and she wishes he sounded less apologetic. “You’d done nothing wrong. You didn’t know.”

“No, I didn’t,” Jemma agrees. “But I didn’t dare to ask about it after that. I didn’t want to hurt you any more than I’d _clearly_ already done.”

“Was probably the most awkward, silent study session we’d ever had,” Fitz recalls.

“But then, when I said that it was getting late and I should get back to my room and I got up, you stopped me, and apologized for yelling at me,” Jemma remarks.

“You mumbled something about it being okay and that you probably deserved it,” Fitz adds, resting his arms on his knees, his fingers intertwined, restlessly playing with each other.

“And you told me no, I _didn’t_ deserve it.” She notices a few stray tears wetting her eyes. “And then you pulled out the picture from your nightstand drawer and told me all about the boy with his blond, unruly hair, clinging to his beautiful mother—”

“—trying to hide his face, because he’d just been told to ‘Smile for the camera’ and he was scared that would be _one_ more thing he was going to fail at. Not even good enough to smile.” Fitz sighs, rubbing his eyes with one hand.

“But she’s smiling because she always smiled. For you,” Jemma recalls what he told her back at the Academy.

A weak chuckle escapes his lips. “Did I ever tell you that after he left, my mum… her smile… I mean she always smiled, but after he left, it felt like her smile... it became _real_. It was brighter or something,” he explains, his index finger gently touching his mother’s face on the photo in Jemma’s hand.

“No, you didn’t,” she replies, smiling warmly. “But you told me _so_ much about her. So proudly. That she doesn’t have a bad bone in her body.”

Jemma chuckles. “Reminds me of someone,” she adds, nudging him softly, and he acknowledges her compliment with a shy smile. “You told me that no matter what your father did or said, she was warm, and kind, and encouraged you and held you when you cried.”

Fitz chuckles sadly. “She told me I was smart. Always. Always stood up for me when he picked on me. And when he left, she told me to forget about everything he had said. She said ‘What do _you_ want to do, Leo? What is something _you_ ’ve always wanted to do?’”

“And you discovered science,” Jemma says quietly, returning her hand to his back, continuing to caress his muscles, feeling them relax little by little.

“ _My_ science,” he clarifies proudly, gesturing at his chest. “Everything _I_ wanted to know. Everything _I_ wanted to learn. Use my hands. Not just my brain. Build. See things grow in front of me that _I_ made.”

Her eyes are still mesmerized by the little blond boy in the picture, the hint of sadness and fear in his eyes, and the woman holding him, her wide smile, the kindness she emanates.

“‘Everything I am, I am because of her,’ you once told me.” Jemma recalls. “‘Except for my brain. I built that myself.’”

He chuckles. “’Suppose that’s true,” he mumbles quietly.

Jemma hesitates for a moment, but then removes her hand from his back, interlacing her fingers with his instead.

“Fitz,” she says quietly, staring at their hands, their interlocked fingers, the way his thumb gently caresses her knuckle. “I need you to know… I hope you know… I—”

She pauses to take a deep breath, inhale the confidence she needs to say to him what she should have said so long ago. “When I left… when I went undercover at Hydra… I… I never thought you weren’t good enough or smart enough.”

She looks at him, and his blue eyes gaze back at her, attentively. “On the contrary,” she continues. “I … I remembered how you told me that once your father left, _that’s_ when you began to excel, _that’s_ when you started to learn and study all the things _you_ loved because that’s when you could do everything for _yourself_ instead of him. You were _free_ from him, from the pain he caused you, making you feel less and… well… I felt like… during your recovery, you… you seemed to… it felt like I was making you feel less without even meaning to… and you tried to get better for _me_ instead of for yourself and… I thought maybe if I took myself out of the equation like your father had done … that… that I would remove the person who was holding you back.”

“I know,” he replies, guiding her hand up to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss to her knuckles. “Took me a while to figure it out.”

He sighs. “Truth is—and there was no way for you to know that—even though I finally did what _I_ wanted to do, built my own brain so to speak, part of me still built it for him.”

He shrugs. “I still wanted to prove that I _was_ good enough, wanted to _impress_ him, wanted his approval. … And… so, when I was recovering from my brain injury… everything I had built to impress him was broken to pieces and… when you left, my mind just automatically went ‘She thinks you’re not good enough either’—”

“Oh Fitz, I didn’t… I _never_ —” she tries to interject, shifting to face him more directly.

“I know,” he says, gazing into her eyes, a weak smile lingering on his lips. “I know now that wasn’t the reason, but that’s where my mind went because that’s what I’d started to expect from people.”

He reaches for her face with one hand, his thumb gently caressing her cheek. “But once you came back. Once… once we started to reconnect, I realized why you had _really_ left. I understood. You did it to help me. You thought it would make things easier for _me_. Not easier for yourself.”

She smiles at him, unable to hide a ghost of sadness, a ghost of guilt, despite his reassuring words.

“Do you think that’s why you looked up to Radcliffe?” Jemma dares to ask.

Fitz shrugs. “He was impressed with my work. Well, seemed to be at least… I felt like I finally did it. Made my father proud.”

“First of all,” Jemma interjects, “Radcliffe is _not_ your father. And second of all, and more importantly: You don’t have to prove yourself to _anyone_ , Fitz.”

She looks directly at him, squeezing his hand gently. “You’re smart. Brilliant! And you worked hard for that and you _shouldn’t_ think that you did it for him! You did it for _yourself_! That’s all _you_. Your brain has always impressed me, because it was the only one that I felt could challenge mine.”

She lets go of his hand and reaches for his cheek instead. She notices how her smile lights up his eyes. “But what impressed me even more about you was your _heart_ , Fitz. How passionate you were about the things you loved. How dedicated and determined. How kindly you treated others. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you can be a bit cocky at times, but … who am _I_ to talk?” she adds jokingly, shrugging slightly.

Fitz laughs out loud. Then he inhales slowly, letting the air escape through his rounded lips. “She said he wasn’t always like that,” he ponders. “She never understood what happened, but she felt like something happened to him, something changed him. Something he didn’t tell her about.” His face grows serious with every word he speaks. “Maybe keeping secrets from the women we love runs in the family,” he concludes quietly, his eyes drifting away from hers.

“Fitz,” Jemma whispers. “Don’t compare yourself to him. Don’t.” Her hand combs through his hair, pushing his head slightly back so he’ll look at her again. “I may not know much about him, but I know enough to know that you’re _nothing_ like him.”

He nods quietly, a weak smile forming in the corners of his mouth.

She looks back at the photograph in her hand one last time before returning it to him. “When was the last time you called her?” she asks.

“Few weeks ago,” he replies quietly, holding the photograph in his hand, his thumb carefully moving back and forth over his mother’s image. “Told her we were looking at apartments.”

“You did?” Jemma asks, surprised, feeling the corners of her mouth turn into a wide smile.

He chuckles briefly, and Jemma enjoys the hint of a happy sparkle in the blue of his eyes. “Seemed like something important,” he remarks.

“What’d she say?”

He scoffs. “About time.”

Jemma laughs out loud. “Maybe you should call her tomorrow morning,” she suggests. “It’ll be good to hear her voice.”

“Yeah. I think I will,” he replies, exhaling sharply, before putting the photograph on the nightstand, propped up so he can see it.

“Thank you, Jemma,” he says quietly, turning back to look at her. “For everything.”

“Thank _you_ ,” Jemma replies, caressing his cheek with her hand, drinking in the love his eyes emanate. “—for being you.”

He lets out a barely audible chuckle, followed by a deep sigh. “You know,” he mutters quietly. “Seeing them burn … there was something cleansing about it.”

“Good!” Jemma remarks, her hand unable to let go of his face.

He leans closer, kissing her gently. The softness of his lips is just another reminder that everything she had said about him earlier is true. The most open, loyal, caring person she’d ever met. The reason she fell in love with him.

“Maybe we should sleep now?” he says quietly, his lips still close enough to brush against hers as he speaks.

“Yes, maybe we should,” Jemma replies, resting her forehead against his. “I love you, Fitz,” she adds, barely above a whisper.

He replies with another soft kiss that speaks more than any words he could have chosen.

**Author's Note:**

> The fic ["Though she be but little, she is fierce!"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9561632) can be read as a continuation of this fic (I split it up into two fics since the tone is quite different)


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